LEARNING CURVE (photo) & THE LIE (free verse dream poem) by Roswila

THE LIE

you've heard of the Big Lie*
well, it looks like some trifling trespass
next to this huge old dilly

no one even knows how it got put over
so widely and thoroughly to begin with
to become such an eyesore in our hindsight
that we can look at it now only through
an uncertain laughter

not even our father with his lyrically
lying tongue could have dreamed up
this gargantuan lie

nor could he have spread it like a warm
but ultimately suffocating blanket
his penchant for self-mockery keeping
his untruths cutting and close to home

and worse yet we still don't even know
what this Brobdingnagian lie actually was!

we only feel it by its absence, dark like
an empty field where invasive grasses once
strangled their ways to dominance, now
stripped bare awaiting the seeds of native
flora on wind and wing


[free verse poem on a dream of 8-22-13. *The expression the "Big Lie" was coined by Adolf Hitler about the use of a lie so "colossal" that no one would believe that someone "could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously..." (from wikipedia online). Photo "Learning Curve" (8-22-09) by Roswila]

BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO DREAMKU (& PHOTOS): The dream-based poems posted on this blog -- dreamku, tanka, two-liners, and monoku -- are offered in the spirit of collaboration. I have done my part. Now it’s your turn to jump in and see what comes up for you. I.e., there is no right or wrong way to relate to any of these dream offerings. Even my own understandings of them change over time. And it gives me joy when a reader sees something in any of them that I have not.

Also please note that a dreamku is not intended as an interpretation of a dream, or even a complete and accurate rendering of one. A dreamku is my attempt to get down dream imagery/action that grabs me and, as I write about it, elicits my conscious written association and response. Nor do I believe that one has to remember dreams in order for them to do their work. In my understanding, we are much more than our conscious selves.

You may also note in any further reading on dreamku you may do, that in the beginning I stressed "showing, not telling." However, that has been changing for some time now. I now tend to "show" (the dream narrative) and cap if off with a "tell" (some reaction and/or insight I've had to the dream as I was writing about it).

For more in-depth exploration:

-- very brief comparison of dreamku and haiku: DREAMKU ARE NOT HAIKU

-- a brief post about both dreamku and my photos THE AREN'TS OF DREAMKU & ACCOMPANYING DIGITAL PHOTOS.

-- detailed three-part post about dreamku: "A DREAMKU PRIMER: Writing Haiku-Like Poems About Your Night Dreams": PART ONE: Introduction & Writing Dreamku as Dream Work; PART TWO: Elements of the Haiku Form Used in Dreamku; and PART THREE: How to Write Dreamku (the second and third parts have some overlap).

-- a short up-dating post about the three-part "A DREAMKU PRIMER" -- Important Up-date to A DREAMKU PRIMER....".

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‘til next time, keep dreaming,






If you wish to copy or use any of my writing or poems, please email me for permission (under “View my complete profile”). Roswila's connections & other blogs: Charter Member of the United Haiku and Tanka Society (UHTS); ROSWILA’S TAROT GALLERY & JOURNAL; ROSWILA’S TAIGA TAROT; and TRYING TO HOLD A BOX OF LIGHT.